After a long while.
They stood up.
"This is a process every consciousness that joins the Mechanical Church must go through."
She shook her head and tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing a smooth cheek beneath her blue eyes.
"A basic understanding of the Machine Intelligence Civilization's history will help you integrate into our community. Our highest decision-maker here is my father, who is also your God of Ten Thousand Machines. Below him is the Purification Council. They manage the entire Mechanical Church on my father's behalf and answer directly to him. As for me..."
She glanced sideways at him and extended her hand.
"Your commander from now on."
Lynn-Brand Refrigerator stared wide-eyed and nodded vigorously, wanting to reach out and shake her hand.
But he soon realized he was a mass of consciousness and had no hands.
So all he could do was thrust his consciousness forward, letting her hand slip inside him. That counted as a handshake.
Silver Fantasy froze for a moment.
Then a serene smile appeared on her face.
"Let's go. We'll give you a form first. Whatever the case, you'll need a suitable body here."
An enormous mechanized metropolis.
Countless aircraft flew high overhead, and futuristic skyscrapers lined both sides of the streets. Since the Machine Intelligence Civilization had been a humanoid civilization before uploading, many of the digital lives here had also configured their consciousness projections into humanoid forms to varying degrees.
But even more were Mechanical Men.
Although he knew it was a data simulation, walking through such a futuristic city still gave him the illusion that it was real.
And Miss Machine Intelligence's appearance naturally attracted the attention of many uploaded consciousnesses.
They were all rather surprised, though.
Because beside her followed a consciousness without a form, clearly one that